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Post by Crucis#1 on Jun 24, 2018 18:53:59 GMT -5
One of the possible reasons for non renewal of the Georgetown series with Dartmouth and Brown is the state of Cooper Field, with the lack of seating and proper locker room facilities.
It must be frustrating for the football staff at Georgetown to have to recruit and play with the lack of progress in the upgrade and changes required to have a proper game day venue.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Jun 24, 2018 20:38:48 GMT -5
The five schools we've by far and away played the most (and the year we started playing each) are: BC - 82 (1896); Dartmouth - 79 (1903); Colgate- 79 (1917); Harvard - 69 (1904); and Brown - 62 (1898). I heartily agree that getting the Big Green back on the schedule would be a real plus, but I accept that it takes two to tango and Dartmouth may no longer have much interest in playing us. Colgate is a different matter. Given the long football history between the two schools, I never understood why we did not replace BC with the (Red) Raiders as our season ending rivalry game...especially after the PL was formed. I know Fordham is a Jesuit school, but still... Perhaps Colgate wasn't interested. Colgate or Fordham would both be great candidates for an end-of-season rivalry game. The issue is the PL- since the conference has seven teams, one school must end the regular season with a bye week. So the last Saturday is always the following: Lehigh-Lafayette, two other games + one team on the sideline having already concluded its season. The five schools not named Lehigh or Lafayette take turns having the end-of-season bye. Hypothetical - PL adds eighth member Duquesne. Rivalries become the following: HC-Fordham Lehigh-Lafayette Colgate-Bucknell Georgetown-Duquesne
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Jun 24, 2018 20:44:29 GMT -5
That has been of the bigger problems (from a fan's perspective anyway) with the PL... i.e. no natural rivalries (Turnpike Trophy excepted of course ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) ). When we played BC, UMass, PC etc regularly in either football or hoop there was a lot of crossovah appeal...you really don't get that with football games against Lehigh or Colgate or hoop tilts versus Bucknell or American. Good point - the BUCKNELL hoops rivalry was hot as a pistol from 2005-2011 and translated absolutely ZILCH into any sense of a football rivalry. Brown football felt like more of a rival than the Bison during that time. Same goes for Colgate - when we were battling it out at the top of the football standings and sending student buses to Hamilton in November, this was a basketball game that drew flies at the Hart, even for Senior Night. Even the Harvard basketball game never felt like it had much juice to it, even when Jeremy Lin was approaching triple doubles against us. Meanwhile, this game filled up 20,000 seats in Harvard Stadium on a Friday night in 2008.
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Post by CHC8485 on Jun 25, 2018 7:13:50 GMT -5
To repeat what I’ve said before (Readers Digest version) ... Pick one school. Play the final game (or final weekend if season ends mid-week) every sport against that school. Every year. Stick with it for at least 10 years. Rivalry will grow.
As to football and 7 teams. If we want a rivalry game to end the season, Georgetown & Fordham as associate members, can alternate the bye. No need to penalize 3 full members because they didn’t come into the league with a rival.
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 25, 2018 7:29:40 GMT -5
Hear! Hear! (Imagine a member of Parliament shouting ![:o](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/shocked.png) )
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Post by joe on Jun 25, 2018 7:37:30 GMT -5
A game in Hamilton, NY in the freezing cold in front of 800 people in the middle of nowhere to close out the season. Yes! Sounds like an awesome rivalry environment. Definitely going to bring the wife and kids out for that one.
If we start winning, and people start gunning for us, a rivalry will emerge on its own. And by the way, I'm pretty sure Fordham is our main in-league rival, given various similarities in our schools and what seems like a deliberate attempt by both schools over decades to foster a friendly rivalry (Ram-Crusader Cup, games in Ireland, Bermuda, Yankee Stadium, etc.).
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 25, 2018 8:40:03 GMT -5
Joe, I've made many a trip to Hamilton for the football games and, yes, the weather was usually very bad, including snow and very cold but without looking it up, pretty sure all those games, especially when the PL championship was on the line, had at minimum 2-3,000 fans, maybe more, which considering the fact Colgate is truly in the boondocks was not bad at all. Having lived 9 long winters in the Syracuse area, the weather didn't bother me so much as the results.
Over the decades I have seen too many Crusader losses in Hamilton including when we were the favorites and seen too many blown leads to the point where I promised Coach Gilmore that I wasn't ever going to make the trip again. I intend to keep that promise to new Coach Chesney.
If we have a football rival, it probably is Colgate. But we have no overall rival as certainly the Raiders are not our basketball rival and can't be a hockey rival. Fordham can't be our overall rival simply because they aren't in our league (shame on them!).
BU can't be a rival, despite the artificial attempt at making them one with the Turnpike Trophy. They don't play football, different leagues in hockey and their enrollment size differential is ridiculous. Only the proximity in Massachusetts is what we have in common.
I do agree that Holy Cross should look for a rivalry akin to the old BC rivalry in order to enhance school spirit beyond the intellectual so that there is a visceral connection to the College that seems lacking. But finding such a rival may be a bridge too far today.
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Post by hcpride on Jun 25, 2018 9:08:24 GMT -5
A game in Hamilton, NY in the freezing cold in front of 800 people in the middle of nowhere to close out the season. Yes! Sounds like an awesome rivalry environment. Definitely going to bring the wife and kids out for that one. If we start winning, and people start gunning for us, a rivalry will emerge on its own. And by the way, I'm pretty sure Fordham is our main in-league rival, given various similarities in our schools and what seems like a deliberate attempt by both schools over decades to foster a friendly rivalry (Ram-Crusader Cup, games in Ireland, Bermuda, Yankee Stadium, etc.). I think you are on to something w/Fordham. As long as we play them (I know, they are not in PL beyond football) in men's hoops they would seem to be a good natural sports rival. Toss in the applicant overlap, student similarity, sports philosophy, geographic proximity, and Catholic Jesuit heritage and it makes sense. We have very little in common with most of the other PL schools...and I think commonality is often the basis of good rivalries.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Jun 25, 2018 9:21:55 GMT -5
A game in Hamilton, NY in the freezing cold in front of 800 people in the middle of nowhere to close out the season. Yes! Sounds like an awesome rivalry environment. Definitely going to bring the wife and kids out for that one. If we start winning, and people start gunning for us, a rivalry will emerge on its own. And by the way, I'm pretty sure Fordham is our main in-league rival, given various similarities in our schools and what seems like a deliberate attempt by both schools over decades to foster a friendly rivalry (Ram-Crusader Cup, games in Ireland, Bermuda, Yankee Stadium, etc.). I think you are on to something w/Fordham. As long as we play them (I know, they are not in PL beyond football) in men's hoops they would seem to be a good natural sports rival. Toss in the applicant overlap, student similarity, sports philosophy, geographic proximity, and Catholic Jesuit heritage and it makes sense. We have very little in common with most of the other PL schools...and I think commonality is often the basis of good rivalries.
Well said. Here's a key question: who would Fordham fans consider to be their rival now? Is there any A-10 team that matches up well with Fordham--none jumps off the page to me. Columbia is close by--but I'm guessing that rivalry is like the HC-Harvard one--teams that have played each other a lot but that will never form the #1 rivalry.
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Post by nhteamer on Jun 25, 2018 9:22:25 GMT -5
Isn't it ironic that 30+ years after the PL was formed as Ivy-Lite, HC now grants more athletic scholarships than it ever has, (l know Title 9 has an impact), and on the Ivy-PL inter-conference football scheduling front, only HC has 3 games against Ivy foes this fall. I believe some PL schools don't have one Ivy on the schedule this fall. Not ironic at all; 100% PREDICTIBLE
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Post by joe on Jun 25, 2018 14:29:54 GMT -5
Sure if we're both vying for the PL championship on the last week of the season the crowd would be decent, but that would be true for any end-of-season game with the PL on the line.
I'm over Hamilton and over Colgate. Too many crappy losses over the years. If it's not BC I do like Fordham as a rival, which really seems to be where we've been heading. If we can beat BC next year by some magic, then let's just go with our traditional rival once again.
Too bad we don't play Villanova regularly.
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Post by rgs318 on Jun 25, 2018 16:08:02 GMT -5
They were indeed, my friend!
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Post by hcpride on Jun 25, 2018 16:33:26 GMT -5
I suppose rivals is a relative term and one can have more than one rival in more than one category. And those change over time. When I was at HC (early 80's, about 35 years ago) we were no longer competitive v BC in football (although we did still play each other and a couple of games were close for a quarter or two before becoming blowouts) but many of my classmates had siblings/cousins/high school friends at BC and that fed some sort of a rivalry. BC was a safety school during college application time for myself and some high school friends (this, again, was long ago) but other than that I didn't think at all about BC. My friends at Colgate saw Cornell as one type of rival and Hamilton as another and barely knew of HC's existence except as an opponent. I googled and found out Colgate has played Cornell 99 times in football so that makes sense. There is definitely a geographic influence on rivalry. Fordham is stoking some sort of a rivalry with Stony Brook by beginning a 4-game football series with them. FWIW the question of Princeton's rival has long been bandied about (Harvard has Yale...is it UPenn and Princeton?)
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Post by bigfan on Jun 25, 2018 16:42:13 GMT -5
Fordham would be a good end of year opponent, it would be great if we could get them back on our basketball schedule.
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Post by HC92 on Jun 25, 2018 22:57:50 GMT -5
How long ago was the last time two schools who were not sports rivals did something to create a real, lasting rivalry? Can you just manufacture one by scheduling games at the end of the season or creating a trophy for the winner of a certain game? I don’t think you can. Our future sports rivals will be of short duration and generated when we are really good at something for a period of time and another team in our league is also good. That’s it. We’re not getting Lafayette-Lehigh or Yale-Harvard by trying to manufacture it in 2018.
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Post by joe on Jun 26, 2018 5:32:06 GMT -5
How long ago was the last time two schools who were not sports rivals did something to create a real, lasting rivalry? Can you just manufacture one by scheduling games at the end of the season or creating a trophy for the winner of a certain game? I don’t think you can. Our future sports rivals will be of short duration and generated when we are really good at something for a period of time and another team in our league is also good. That’s it. We’re not getting Lafayette-Lehigh or Yale-Harvard by trying to manufacture it in 2018. There’s truth to this but I it would still be nice to put Fordham as our final game every year to coax the process along some.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Jun 26, 2018 6:13:42 GMT -5
How long ago was the last time two schools who were not sports rivals did something to create a real, lasting rivalry? Can you just manufacture one by scheduling games at the end of the season or creating a trophy for the winner of a certain game? I don’t think you can. Our future sports rivals will be of short duration and generated when we are really good at something for a period of time and another team in our league is also good. That’s it. We’re not getting Lafayette-Lehigh or Yale-Harvard by trying to manufacture it in 2018. CMON 92,you're a Hartford area resident. Havent you ever heard of the ConnFLict?
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Post by CHC8485 on Jun 26, 2018 6:29:31 GMT -5
How long ago was the last time two schools who were not sports rivals did something to create a real, lasting rivalry? Can you just manufacture one by scheduling games at the end of the season or creating a trophy for the winner of a certain game? I don’t think you can. Our future sports rivals will be of short duration and generated when we are really good at something for a period of time and another team in our league is also good. That’s it. We’re not getting Lafayette-Lehigh or Yale-Harvard by trying to manufacture it in 2018. Not college, but my high school was 10 years old when I enrolled. It was only the 8th year of varsity competition. We had a rival and the games in all sports were intense, and we wanted to beat them no matter out record or theirs. They wanted to beat us. It was the late 70s so times were different, but 10 years is enough to build some intense feelings. The idea of of doing it in all sports is to build some animosity and intensity. Over 5 years and 20 sports, that’s at least 100 opportunities for a refs call, a cheap shot or an over-enthusiastic celebration to cause bad feelings. Not to mention for an unexpected victory to steal a championship or prevent a heavy favorite from winning a championship to create more bad feelings. And if you get half the athletes feeling that way over 5 years, it will spread. And it’s something worth a shot as - outside of the Turnpike Trophy - what else has been done to develop a rival over the last 30 years?
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Post by rgs318 on Jun 26, 2018 7:13:06 GMT -5
One of the first steps in building a rivalry is to have an opponent who also "respects" you...and your ability. That was the case when we had a strong rivalry with Bucknell for a time in hoops. I am not sure our teams will ever be able to develop that until we start to become competitive in multiple sports with one of our opponents. Our recent lack of success in most so-called minor sports may prevent that from happening any time soon. The change may be starting, but it can't come fast enough for me.
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Post by Ignutz on Jun 26, 2018 9:20:00 GMT -5
One of the first steps in building a rivalry is to have an opponent who also "respects" you...and your ability. That was the case when we had a strong rivalry with Bucknell for a time in hoops. I am not sure our teams will ever be able to develop that until we start to become competitive in multiple sports with one of our opponents. Our recent lack of success in most so-called minor sports may prevent that from happening any time soon. The change may be starting, but it can't come fast enough for me. Geographic proximity is also key. You want to be close enough that students from each school can jump in a car (or on school-sponsored buses) to show up at the opposition's venue and support your school. If that is indeed a critical factor, I'm not sure that we'll ever establish a true rivalry in the PL. The creation of the Turnpike Trophy was/is an attempt to do so, but based on the numerous, significant, and often glaring differences between the institutions, I don't see HC students or alums ever getting to the point where they get jazzed-up about games against BU. Occasionally, there will be a meaningful game with league or NCAA tournament implications (hoops in Feb '17, lacrosse in '15 & '16, soccer in '17), but otherwise, I think the attitude is "meh".
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Post by trimster on Jun 26, 2018 9:30:00 GMT -5
"Meh" is being kind. The buzz has been absent for a long, long time with the exception of the majority of the Willard years in hoops.
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Post by jkh67 on Jun 26, 2018 9:31:23 GMT -5
The traditional Thanksgiving rivalry game has been Penn- Cornell. Living in Wilmington, Delaware, I've been to Franklin Field many times over the years and to Palmer Stadium/Princeton Stadium a fair amount as well. Trust me, the crowds and energy generated by the Princeton-Penn game in either venue far exceed what the Cornell game generates for Penn fans. By the bye, Princeton's last game is always against Dartmouth. I've been to a few of those at Princeton and, sitting on the visitors' side, I've regularly run into Dartmouth folks. When I mention I'm an HC grad, the conversations automatically turn to the HC-Dartmouth rivalry. (I had a similar experience with a Dartmouth grad while cruising up the Yangtze River some years ago.) Great fun all the way around.
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 26, 2018 10:15:12 GMT -5
Thought awhile back there was agreement that these would be referred to as the "non-revenue sports" since there is generally no admission or other stream of income, other than what the NCAA chips in (which is the reason I was given by a very high up Administration official why Holy Cross will not drop any of those sports as they cost Holy Cross "peanuts" to run). FWIW, when I was living and working in the hinterlands (read: Columbus, OH), one of my peers and another one of my short-term bosses were Yalies and they greatly knew, appreciated and respected my Holy Cross degree among all the OSU grads, a few Michigan grads and Ohio U. grads. The feeling was a Northeast, and more specifically a New England, degree counted for more than from a huge state school. They didn't even "sniff" at me!
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Post by rgs318 on Jun 26, 2018 10:55:01 GMT -5
Thanks, sader1970. I could not remember what the current PC term was for these sports. I helped raise money for them as an undergrad (with the infamous "I Am A Holy Cross Athletic Supporter" bumper sticker) so they have long been dear to my heart. Does Holy Cross actually have any real "revenue" sports? I thought every sport cost us money. Should they be called "paid admission" sports? ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png) jkh67, I had a similar experience with a Lafayette grad on a trip to South Dakota last summer. He asked how I know about the PArds recent tough times and was happy to learn about CROSSPORTS. He drops by here now from time to time - but does not post. I think he knew more about HC's athletic past than some of today's undergrads do.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 26, 2018 11:42:36 GMT -5
Thanks, sader1970. I could not remember what the current PC term was for these sports. I helped raise money for them as an undergrad (with the infamous "I Am A Holy Cross Athletic Supporter" bumper sticker) so they have long been dear to my heart. Does Holy Cross actually have any real "revenue" sports? I thought every sport cost us money. Should they be called "paid admission" sports? ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png) Every HC sport loses money, in that generated revenue is less than expenses.. The loss per participant is probably highest for the so-called revenue sports, and M ice hockey and scollie women's ice hockey. (Caveat. if a parent one-time gifted $100,000 for a sport like M/W tennis, that plus the NCAA's revenue sharing could lift M/W tennis into the plus side of the ledger. (Assumes no scollies for M/W tennis.) Similarly, its quite possible that some Ivies may have a non-revenue sport with generated revenue in excess of expenses (even allowing for their need-based financial aid not being counted). All one needs is for a rich alum(s) to endow a sport, and income from the restricted endowment counts as generated revenue. IIRC, Penn State ice hockey benefits greatly from an alumnus' great generosity.
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